Case Study This case study involves an in-depth examination of a single student in my master teacher's Alegebra 2 class. To evaluate the effectiveness of an online course, including its strengths and weaknesses, a case study depicting a student's experience in a program can provide evidence of successes and failures in a course.
Nature of the Carmen's participation Carmen started into the Algebra Course late- during Week 2. Her efforts and participation in the class were quite high initially. As the weeks have progressed her participation has been spotty. She tends to turn in high quality work but her downfall is her lack of follow through with all of her assignments. The zeros that she receives quickly counteract the high grades she earns for work completed.
Changes in Carmen's Participation As the weeks have progressed, a decrease in Carmen's participation and efforts can be seen. She is sporadically completing assignments and not prioritizing which are "more important" than others. For example, she did not attempt a Test but chose to participate in an ice-breaker discussion (Two Truths and a Lie). An interesting fact about her participation in the ice-breaker was this was the a second discussion prompt posted by me (as a way for the students and I to meet). After Carment did not respond to my first ice-breaker, I sent her a message in the Private Thread. I explained to her how I was interested in getting to know her (being the "new person in the class" and looked forward to her participation the following week. It is as if Carmen needs special attention for each of the classroom expectations.
Carmen's Dialogue Carmen's interaction with the teacher is frequent. She utilizes the Private Thread on a regular basis for her interactions with the teacher. However it is important to note most of the student-teacher interactions are related to low participation and/or late assignments. She often questions how late she can turn in work for credit and how much credit she will earn for late work.
The interactions between the teacher and the student tend to be reactive with less of a focus on how Carmen could improve for in the upcoming weeks. Although it is great to see the flexibility of the teacher, I am not sure the continuous bending of the expectations is going to be a good tone for the entire year. It will be interesting to see if the master teacher raises the expectations for timeliness as the weeks progress.
An important factor to note is Carmen has very little interaction with her peers. With the exception of an introductory assignment, she never posts in the "Have A Question" Forum which was created by the master instructor for students to post questions about assignments or technical issues. This is an area frequented by many of her classmates but Carmen is a non-participant in this area. (Note: It was not required that students post here but suggested by the teacher as a way to post common concerns). When looking at the Discussions for the first 11 weeks of the course it is apparent that Carmen is not active participant. When she does post to th Discussions, they tend to be the discussion that are primarily ice-breakers. It is as if she is trying to reach out to her classmates by posting interesting information about herself, but she never responds back to their questions or comments.
Carmen's Familiarity and Competentence with Technology
Carmen has not posted questions or concerns with technology. She does not complain of any struggles with applets, videos, translating documents into various formats or the classroom platform. Carmen participated in a few of the initial activities (posting to the private thread, posting in the student lounge and posting in the question forum) I have reason to believe that Carmen is familiar and competent with technology thus far.
During the first week of the class, students were asked to complete a survey on their background and resources. Addtionally, students completed a technology checklist. Both the survey and the checklist were left incomplete by Carmen. It would have beneficial for the teacher to ask Carmen to make up this survey (even after the first few weeks). This may have provided further insight into Carmen's abilities and familiarities with technology.
Carmen's Academic Success Thus far into the year, Carmen has not been academically successful. Her overall average falls into the 54% range. However, it is important to note that Carmen's low average is such due to a lack of work completion. When Carmen turns in assignments, they tend to be of high quality (with the exception of low quiz/test grades). It would be nice to see how Carmen would perform with alternative assessments (assessments which ask her to apply her learning).
Artifacts that Represent the Carmen's Achievement Despite Carmen's low grade, she has successfully completed tasks. This success shows that she is a capable young lady but is a student that is at risk of not achieving academic success for reason's other than not being capable.
Carmen is watching video lessons and capable of summarizing the material in note form. In addition to a 20/20 as a grade she earned the following feedback from the master teacher: Very nice job Carmen. These notes look great. Very neat and easy to follow. 17-20 Points. You captured all important elements of the videos. You included examples from the videos and any graphs that were present. Topic headings were easy to find. Your notes are easy to follow and will serve you as good study guides.
Carmen is listening to podcasts and understanding the material presented in audio format. This is an example of the work she presented from a math podcast where she earned a 15/15 as a grade.
Carmen is learning from her activities. She is able to translate and apply her learnings to her homework. This is an example of a homework assignment where she recieved the following as feedback: Your work looks very nice Carmen. Just remember to show your work for all of the problems. 14-16 Points. All problems are done and attempted. Some lack the proper support needed to show how your answer was derived. Level of work shown does not support solutions. Work is somewhat messy but can be followed. Some work is not properly labeled or is difficult to follow. Graphs are missing labels or are difficult to read. Remember to check your answers with the solutions in the book. I would recommend putting a check mark to indicate you’ve done this. This is an important step in determining whether you’ve learned the material. If you don’t understand how to do a problem, you have to post a question to the forum.
Carmen has the ability to converse with her peers. This is an example of the posting that Carmen is capable of. For this artifact she earned a 10/10 with the following comments: Carmen - Great participation this week :) Well written and thought out post(s) - almost perfect. No spelling or grammatical errors. Personal opinions or ideas are supported with outside information, statistics, quotes, etc. Comments contain more than 1-2 sentences.
Case Study
This case study involves an in-depth examination of a single student in my master teacher's Alegebra 2 class. To evaluate the effectiveness of an online course, including its strengths and weaknesses, a case study depicting a student's experience in a program can provide evidence of successes and failures in a course.
http://artistshospital.deviantart.com/art/Case-Study-Stuck-in-Anime-75529904
Nature of the Carmen's participation
Carmen started into the Algebra Course late- during Week 2. Her efforts and participation in the class were quite high initially. As the weeks have progressed her participation has been spotty. She tends to turn in high quality work but her downfall is her lack of follow through with all of her assignments. The zeros that she receives quickly counteract the high grades she earns for work completed.
Changes in Carmen's Participation
As the weeks have progressed, a decrease in Carmen's participation and efforts can be seen. She is sporadically completing assignments and not prioritizing which are "more important" than others. For example, she did not attempt a Test but chose to participate in an ice-breaker discussion (Two Truths and a Lie).
An interesting fact about her participation in the ice-breaker was this was the a second discussion prompt posted by me (as a way for the students and I to meet). After Carment did not respond to my first ice-breaker, I sent her a message in the Private Thread. I explained to her how I was interested in getting to know her (being the "new person in the class" and looked forward to her participation the following week. It is as if Carmen needs special attention for each of the classroom expectations.
Carmen's Dialogue
Carmen's interaction with the teacher is frequent. She utilizes the Private Thread on a regular basis for her interactions with the teacher. However it is important to note most of the student-teacher interactions are related to low participation and/or late assignments. She often questions how late she can turn in work for credit and how much credit she will earn for late work.
The interactions between the teacher and the student tend to be reactive with less of a focus on how Carmen could improve for in the upcoming weeks. Although it is great to see the flexibility of the teacher, I am not sure the continuous bending of the expectations is going to be a good tone for the entire year. It will be interesting to see if the master teacher raises the expectations for timeliness as the weeks progress.
An important factor to note is Carmen has very little interaction with her peers. With the exception of an introductory assignment, she never posts in the "Have A Question" Forum which was created by the master instructor for students to post questions about assignments or technical issues. This is an area frequented by many of her classmates but Carmen is a non-participant in this area. (Note: It was not required that students post here but suggested by the teacher as a way to post common concerns).
When looking at the Discussions for the first 11 weeks of the course it is apparent that Carmen is not active participant. When she does post to th Discussions, they tend to be the discussion that are primarily ice-breakers. It is as if she is trying to reach out to her classmates by posting interesting information about herself, but she never responds back to their questions or comments.
Carmen's Familiarity and Competentence with Technology
Carmen has not posted questions or concerns with technology. She does not complain of any struggles with applets, videos, translating documents into various formats or the classroom platform. Carmen participated in a few of the initial activities (posting to the private thread, posting in the student lounge and posting in the question forum) I have reason to believe that Carmen is familiar and competent with technology thus far.
During the first week of the class, students were asked to complete a survey on their background and resources. Addtionally, students completed a technology checklist. Both the survey and the checklist were left incomplete by Carmen. It would have beneficial for the teacher to ask Carmen to make up this survey (even after the first few weeks). This may have provided further insight into Carmen's abilities and familiarities with technology.
Carmen's Academic Success
Thus far into the year, Carmen has not been academically successful. Her overall average falls into the 54% range. However, it is important to note that Carmen's low average is such due to a lack of work completion. When Carmen turns in assignments, they tend to be of high quality (with the exception of low quiz/test grades). It would be nice to see how Carmen would perform with alternative assessments (assessments which ask her to apply her learning).
Artifacts that Represent the Carmen's Achievement
Despite Carmen's low grade, she has successfully completed tasks. This success shows that she is a capable young lady but is a student that is at risk of not achieving academic success for reason's other than not being capable.
Carmen is watching video lessons and capable of summarizing the material in note form. In addition to a 20/20 as a grade she earned the following feedback from the master teacher:
Very nice job Carmen. These notes look great. Very neat and easy to follow.
17-20 Points. You captured all important elements of the videos. You included examples from the videos and any graphs that were present. Topic headings were easy to find. Your notes are easy to follow and will serve you as good study guides.
Carmen is listening to podcasts and understanding the material presented in audio format. This is an example of the work she presented from a math podcast where she earned a 15/15 as a grade.
Carmen is learning from her activities. She is able to translate and apply her learnings to her homework. This is an example of a homework assignment where she recieved the following as feedback:
Your work looks very nice Carmen. Just remember to show your work for all of the problems.
14-16 Points. All problems are done and attempted. Some lack the proper support needed to show how your answer was derived. Level of work shown does not support solutions. Work is somewhat messy but can be followed. Some work is not properly labeled or is difficult to follow. Graphs are missing labels or are difficult to read. Remember to check your answers with the solutions in the book. I would recommend putting a check mark to indicate you’ve done this. This is an important step in determining whether you’ve learned the material. If you don’t understand how to do a problem, you have to post a question to the forum.
Carmen has the ability to converse with her peers. This is an example of the posting that Carmen is capable of. For this artifact she earned a 10/10 with the following comments:
Carmen - Great participation this week :)
Well written and thought out post(s) - almost perfect. No spelling or grammatical errors. Personal opinions or ideas are supported with outside information, statistics, quotes, etc. Comments contain more than 1-2 sentences.